The Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (Amrita Hospital) at Kochi has conducted India’s – and Asia’s – first upper-arm double hand-transplant on Shreya Siddanagowda, a 19-year-old chemical engineering student of Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka, who lost both her hands in a road mishap last year. The donor was 20-year-old Sachin, a B. Com final year student of Ernakulam’s Rajagiri College, who was declared brain-dead after suffering fatal head injury in a motorcycle accident. His parents readily agreed to donate his hands and other organs for transplant.

Shreya is the only daughter of Suma Nuggihalli and Fakirgowda Siddnagowder, a senior manager at Tata Motors, Pune. In September 2016, while returning by road from Pune to her college near Mangalore, the bus she was travelling in overturned at Honnavar (80 kms from Manipal), crushing her hands. She was rushed to the Kasturba Medical College in Manipal, where both her arms had to be amputated at the elbow.

Shreya was devastated, losing her hands at such a young age. She said: “My whole world collapsed and I couldn’t believe what had happened. However, I recovered emotionally in a few weeks because of the loving support of my family and close friends, …

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